Chapter II

History of the Research

In the early twentieth century the history of Numantia drew the attention of European researchers like Adolf Schulten (helped in the archaeological work by Constantin Köenen and in the topographical work and military strategy by Lammerer) who carried out the first studies under the patronage of Kaiser Wilhelm II (as honorary colonel of the Dragoons Regiment of Numantia). He brokered excavations in the city in 1905 and, from 1906 to 1912, in the Roman Camps and the Scipio siege site. The results and reports on this work were published in the most renowned research reviews of the time, Numantia thus coming in for serious academic consideration at the start of the century.

A new commission of the Real Academia de la Historia was set up (1906 to 1923), chaired by Saavedra and, as from 1912, by Mélida, the members including González Simancas, Marqués de Cerralbo, Abad Gómez Santacruz and Blas Taracena, first curator of the Numantine Museum. This work revealed a large surface area of the city (c. 6-7 hectares); the streets of stepping stones were considered to correspond to the Celtiberian city of 133 BCE, thereafter destroyed by Scipio, and another overlaid one of more regular stones to the city of the Roman era. Nowadays we know that they were in fact two phases of the same Roman city. To vouch for the antiquity of “the city” of streets with stepping stones they took their cue from the city of Carthage (3rd century BCE), but without taking into account the even earlier example of Pompeii.

The Commission did not consider the stratigraphic work of Schulten (1945:170) and Köenen in Block IV (1905), who documented below the Roman city, next to the city wall, two superimposed Celtiberian levels, attributing the older to the city destroyed by Scipio in 133 BCE and the superimposed city to the later one brought to an end in the Sertorian Wars (75-72 BCE). The houses of the lower level, 12 metres long and about 3 metres wide, were divided into three rooms. The first one gave onto another underground room or “cellar”, 2 metres deep and serving as a larder. What Schulten overlooked is that these houses left room between their narrow back side and the city wall for a circulatory street.

Recent studies, based on the city’s visible groundplan, on ancient plans and aerial photos, plus an excavation of block XXIII, enable us to distinguish between two Celtiberian cities. The oldest corresponds to the one destroyed by Scipio in 133 BCE. Singular Numantine ceramics, found in a store built on to one of these houses, were wrongly dated to the late 1st century BCE on mistaken assessment of their Roman influence. As for the second, Appian tells us that Scipio gave Numantia and its territory to those native tribes that had helped to conquer it; this new city then being destroyed in the Sertorian Wars (75-72 BCE).

Carbon-14 analyses of the base of the city wall in the northern zone have thrown up a date of 340±50 BCE. This gives us a yardstick for the foundation of the city, borne out by the information from the Celtiberian necropolis and information from block XXIII, which was destroyed by Scipio in 133 BCE, made up by rectangular houses compartmentalised into three rooms, organised in blocks. The city destroyed in Sertorian times (75-72 BCE) is worse for wear since it was largely swept away by the construction raised on the Imperial Roman city. Nonetheless, we have been able to document this city, showing it to be made up by longer, rectangular houses built onto the wall, in different parts of the city.

As from the work by Blas Taracena and up to the transfer of powers to the Regional Authority of Castilla y León (Junta de Castilla y León) in 1985, only sporadic Numantia work was carried out. In 1963, for example, F. Wattenberg performed a series of stratigraphic sections that gave insights into the first phases of city occupancy and produced a re-dating of the ceramic finds on the basis of this new stratigraphy. Commemoration of the 21st Centenary of the Numantine Feat in 1967 brought several Spanish Specialists to Soria. The chance was then taken to submit for their consideration the General Plan of Work in Numantia, approved by the Directorate General of Fine Arts in 1962. The plan was then trimmed down to only a few improvements.

The assumption of powers by the Junta de Castilla y León brought systematic attention back to the archaeological site, whereupon cleaning and study campaigns were carried out in favour of its conservation. In 1989-1990 a start was made on fitting out the guardhouses and the Excavations Commission. At the same time, under an agreement between the Junta de Castilla y León, The Provincial Council of Soria (Diputación de Soria) and the National Employment Institute (INEM), a guided trail was laid out with twelve stopping-off points illustrated with drawings and explanatory panels. A video was also set up in the guardhouse to give a historic explanation of the city. This latter project (1994) was the forerunner of a Master Plan of the Junta de Castilla y León, drawn up by the Numantia Archaeological Team led by Professor Alfredo Jimeno Martínez (UCM), with archaeological research as its main remit.

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